This board has what Jetway calls the G.P.I., or Green Power Indicator, and it indicates when the CPU is being underclocked to save power and running at full speed when under load. I monitored this when doing the testing, and it worked fantasticly.

On the board, you can tell that its designed for the overclocker. You have a dedicated power and reset switch on the board, a Bios reset button on the back I/O shield, and the XBlue logo's "X" lights up blue whenever there is hard drive activity.

You also get a incredible onboard video processor, the Intel GMA X4500HD, and this supports DirectX 10, and full Vista Aero theme capability. Not only does the onboard video crank out excellent video quality, there is a PCI-e 16x slot riser card that gives you both a HDMI port with audio, and a Display Port. There is even an optional riser card that attaches to a dedicated pinout on the board for a wireless adapter, should you so be inclined to use wireless.

There are 6 SATA ports that operate at SATA2 speeds(3Gb/s). These operate wonderfully, and are well positioned on the board so as to not get int the way of large video cards. There are no IDE connectors on this board, as IDE is going to way of the floppy drive. This could pose a issue for some that are looking to upgrade their current PC with a new motherboard and CPU, but if you are really looking to upgrade, then its time to let go of your IDE drives.

The motherboard offers 6 channel HD audio for your listening enjoyment, and can also pump that audio though the HDMI port as well, to get the very best experience when it comes to Home Theater PC's. You also get a Gigabit Ethernet port, as well as 4 USB ports on the back I/O shield. On the board, you get 3 USB headers, good for 6 more USB ports, as well as headers for COM2, a Parallel port, and front audio.

The XBlue-G45 has 2 PCI-e slots(one in 16x mode, and one in 4x mode) and will support Crossfire, but because the slots are not balanced, this may not give as good of performance as a single card setup.

Today, in our tests, we use the XBlue-G45 motherboard, with the Intel Core2 Quad Q6600(2.4Ghz), and 4gb(2x 2Gb) of DDR2-800Mhz ram with Windows Vista Ultimate x64 installed. Our testing programs included 3Dmarks 05, Performance Test x64, and x264 Benchmark, as well as the Windows Vista experience rating.

I started with the simple Windows Vista rating, and the results were surprisingly well for a onboard graphics card. It fully supports the Windows Vista Aero theme, and operated smoothly overall.

The Intel GMA X4500HD is a really impressive GPU for being a onboard GPU. It handled HD video in 1080p effortlessly, and the colors were bright, and clear. When we tested this setup with x264 benchmark, we got some very impressive results.

As you can see, it encoded the 1080p video at a nice pace. The 720p encode was even faster.

Our 3Dmarks 05 test results were low, but better than expected from a onboard graphics card.

The results were unclear as why they were low, but I can only assume its the lack of dedicated graphics ram, as it shares it with the CPU.

We also ran Performance Mark x64 for a run of 2D and basic 3D tests, and these went wonderfully.

These results were very impressive, and should satisfy any casual gamer or HTPC application.

We did use Performance Test x64 to do a multitasking test for 60 seconds to see how well the motherboard handled multitasking. Here are those results.

As you can see, the results were very good. This is attributed to the entire setup, but this board handles the multitasking very well.

Overall, this is an amazing motherboard. Its packed with wonderful features, and has some nice options. It performs great, and would be the perfect HTPC board or everyday user PC right out of the box, or it can be a excellent gaming and overclocking powerhouse for the enthusiast.

I would like to take this time to thank Jetway for letting me review this product, and I look forward to reviewing more of their products soon.

whats the actual form factor, i need a board 9x9 or smaller. the height definitely cannot be 9.6 as most are (is this even going to happen for me?) tell you what though if that one is 9 by whatever, i am buying it. i have a side project that i started for Xmas contest that i am scrambling to assemble and complete. nice little mini maybe going to be a gigantor htpc/ media hub or possibly a for sale pc. that board opens ALOT of opportunities for the build. i was looking at Jetway site seeing as you cover alot of their products and they never really get into actual form factor. just say its micro or mini, which i assume is 9.6x 9.6 for micro, and i do not know for mini.
lol, you want to sell me that one you reviewed?

unrelated: just noticed your listening to nonpoints cover of "in the air tonight" awesome... i didn't realize you liked the same music cool cool. nonpoint rules.. i am currently totally in love with atreyu (saw them live and it was over,.. instant new favorite band)

as far as the Jetway board goes, its a full size ATX board. unfortunately, I don't know where my tape measure is, so I cant give you an exact dimention. From my experience, mini-ATX is a board with 3-4 slots, a full ATX board is 5-7 slots, Micro-ATX, thats more like 2 slots. Mini-ITX(also known as IPC for some companies) is about 7"x7" square, and have 1 slot.

I can tell you that this XBlue-G45 is about 8-10" x 11-13" I'll see if I can get my tape measure and get a exact size for you.